Neil Midgley writes about media for The Daily Telegraph, in between ice skating and tweeting - he's @neilmidgley on Twitter

The BBC: Cardiff 1, Salford 0

It hasn't been a great couple of days in the BBC's ongoing struggle to spend more of the licence fee in the nations and regions.

Yesterday, a committee of MPs had a go at Auntie for not spending enough in Northern Ireland (granted, it was a committee of MPs dedicated to life in Northern Ireland).

And then today, Radio 5 Live controller Adrian Van Klaveren spoke at a Broadcasting Press Guild lunch – and admitted that neither he nor any of his presenters has committed to moving house when 5 Live moves to Salford next year. It will be a sorry state of affairs if that network ends up entirely managed and presented by people who still live down south and just parachute in to Manchester during the week.

Van Klaveren pointed out, quite rightly, that the BBC can't dictate where its people choose to live. And he also made the valid point that the 5 Live move is intended as part of a long-term strategy – as the years tick by, so 5 Live will gradually replace its presenters and staff, with the likely result being that more of them will live in the north-west.

This sort of effect is already being seen in Cardiff, where drama production is booming. BBC Wales announced last week that it is to build a new drama production centre. The Roath Basin facility will replace the assortment of sheds, spattered across south Wales, that currently houses Doctor Who and Merlin. It'll also house Casualty, when it moves from Bristol, and possibly other BBC Wales productions (such as the upcoming remake of Upstairs, Downstairs).

In Wales, the construction of the swanky new building (well, I say swanky – the sketch does look like an Ikea version of the Doge's Palace in Venice) has followed naturally as more and more drama production has been nurtured there. In Salford, the whole thing is the other way round: site first, purpose later.

Van Klaveren did his best to convince the assembled BPG hacks that the whole project makes sense. That, for example, any sensible DG would move his sports department and his sports-focused radio station 200 miles from London – and do it the year before London hosts the biggest sporting event in the world.

But in the real world, Salford just doesn't make sense. I was talking recently to a senior US TV executive, who was hooting with derision at this BBC attempt at social engineering – a project which, let's not forget, was forced on it by a Labour government desperate to pander to voters in the north-west. My American colleague could not fathom why the government would be involved in broadcasting at all, let alone to the extent of dictating where the radio studios should be.

I'm all in favour of spending the licence fee outside London (and, in particular, in Leeds, where I'm from, not in Manchester). But the Cardiff example is the way to do it: build the creative community first, and let the grand projects follow.